


Realizaitons

by hellostarlight20



Series: Stories of the past-prompts [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Missing Scene, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 02:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7916836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Beast says “The Valiant child who will soon die in battle” why is it the only future prophecy when all the others were personal, vague pieces of their past?  And why was the Doctor never mentions? Or was he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Realizaitons

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been on a reread kick of rewrites lately. (You may realize they’re one of my favs!) And a thought I’ve had on and off since watching Impossible Planet was about the Beast and his so-called prophecy. With all these rewrite rereads, this is what happened. Unbeta’ed (written during End of the World rewatch)

“Did I die?” Rose asked the moment she heard him enter the library. She didn’t turn to look at him but continued to stare into the faux fire in the ornate fireplace the TARDIS kindly created.

“What?” The word wasn’t said with the Doctor’s normal inflection, that incredulous disbelief an octave higher than normal. But in a choked, awkward intake of refusal—to acknowledge, to believe, to accept. 

“The Beast,” Rose clarified from the library’s sofa where she found herself after their return to the TARDIS.

Well, after a long, very long, hot shower. The food she made for the two of them, soup and sandwiches, cooled on the low table in front of her, but Rose didn’t bother with it. She wasn’t as hungry as she thought—or thought she should be.

She turned then and met his gaze over the back of the couch. The dark eyes that begged her not to continue. She ignored them. Had to. For her own peace of mind. Resting her chin on her hands, Rose met his gaze evenly and tried to sort out her thoughts.

“Rose, I know this is bothering you,” he began, clearly trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

Or the fear, maybe.

“It isn’t that.” She shook her head and sat straighter. “It told Zach he was scared of command—but that was a current fear. And Jefferson, it said he was haunted by the eyes of his wife.”

The Doctor’s gaze sparked with something, not the same fear to talk about what the Beast (the beast, no sense giving it more power than it thought it had) said. But a more curious look to him now. The same one he often wore with a new adventure or creature or puzzle.

“And Ida, it said she still ran; Danny lied about something; Toby was a virgin.” Rose waved that away with a faint growl. Toby had been weak and scared and easily led by the beast. 

“Where are you going with this, Rose?” The Doctor rounded the sofa and sat next to her.

Rose tracked him with her gaze, not moving. She didn’t feel like it, though an odd sort of energy beat just under her skin. Tired and lethargic, scared and worried, she watched the Doctor and couldn’t decide if she wanted to curl into his side and stay there forever or run—run fast and far and forever.

Hadn’t she promised him that just before they landed? Hadn’t she promised she’d stay with him forever right before this—this disastrous trip to an impossible planet beneath a black hole?

“Those are surface thoughts, yeah?” she asked. “The, what’d you call them? When Cassandra was in my head?” She shifted on the sofa and leaned her head against the back. Nope, no energy for more than that, though Rose felt the pinprick of it along each nerve.

“Surface thoughts.” The Doctor nodded and sat straighter. His fingers tapped along his thigh and he looked into the distance with his mind-racing look on. As if the wildly burning energy she felt affected him as well.

His gaze shot back to hers, burning in its intensity. “Even the strongest telepath can’t penetrate a mind without the other being knowing—most beings have natural walls, so aware of how they look or move and unwilling to give anything away.”

“Right.” Rose nodded. “Like trying to control their body language when they’re lying. But the beast, it read surface thoughts, those things constantly on our minds, yeah? The worries we have all the time that we can’t get rid of.”

The Doctor let out a breath as if letting out all his stress and anxiety with that release. “You’re right. It only said generalized things, vague things about everyone else’s past.” His eyes narrowed at her. “So why did it think you were going to die?”

Rose tilted her head and watched him. “That’s not my fear, Doctor.”

He swallowed hard and nodded. “No.” The word was barely a whisper, more a breath of sound. “No, it’s not.”

“Your fear is that I’m going to die in battle.” She cleared her throat and sat straighter. Embraced that energy. She didn’t want to think about death—hers or his. “My question is: did I die. On the Game Station. When I opened the Heart of the TARDIS and—and flew back to you.”

He paled, watching her. Eyes wide, freckles blotching his skin, he looked sickly. And once more that fear returned, pinching his features.

“I did, didn’t I?” She asked calmly. Nodding she closed her eyes for a brief moment. “I thought I did—you regenerated to save my live, but I didn’t.” She shook her head. “What I mean is that I should’ve burned, yeah?”

The Doctor wordlessly nodded. Hands curled into tight fists, jaw clenched, his angry-dimples coming out, he looked furious. And terrified.

“So with the power of the Vortex running through me,” she continued far calmer than she felt, “I should’ve burned. But you took it out of me, however you did that, and regenerated instead.”

He nodded again.

“So,” Rose said, confident in her conclusion even if the words scraped like daggers in her throat. “If you took it all out of me, then it was in you. Did you use the power to bring me back to life?”

The Doctor froze. It’d be comical if the question wasn’t so important. He swallowed audibly and blinked slowly. Nodded even slower. “I didn’t care about me,” he whispered. “It didn’t matter if I regenerated. Was worth it,” he added, taking her hand. “You’re always worth it.”

A tear slipped free of her control and the energy broke over her. “You knew all this time, and that was what the beast picked up on—you feared I’d what? Remember it? Die again?”

He moved before she realized he had. Enveloped her in a hug, awkward on the sofa, as if he never wanted to let her go. Rose felt his lips move along her neck, but couldn’t hear his words; she didn’t let him go, either. Not for long, long moments.

The Doctor pulled back just enough to look at her. “That you’d leave me.”

Rose leaned into his touch, closed her eyes. “I’m not, Doctor. Told you that the other day, yeah?”

“You did, Rose.” He swallowed and wiped her cheeks, long, cool fingers trembling slightly against her skin. “You did die. And when I took the Vortex out of you—you were—I—”

He shook his head and she blinked back tears. “So that’s really what the beast picked up on. Your fears. Your surface thoughts. Not something that might happen in the future. Not when it only knew the past of everyone else.”

“It’s my greatest fear,” the Doctor admitted and the words sounded like they were pulled from him. “That something I do or somewhere I land will cause your death.”

Rose shuddered but didn’t look away. “Then that happens. But I’m not going to stop traveling with you and I’m sure as hell not going to stop helping people just because of fear. I won’t allow it that sort of control over me.”

It wrapped around her—that earlier energy she thought broke now covered her, a thousand pinpricks, a hundred bolts of lightning. Rose didn’t know whether to embrace it or shun it. Run from it.

“Tell me?” she asked, throat raw. “Tell me what really happened?”

And he did. The Doctor told her about kissing her and taking the Vortex from her body into his. About laying her on the TARDIS grating and using a small spark of it to bring her back to life. About not caring what happened to him, so long as Rose lived.

She cried during it, cried for the previous him she loved so much and for the clear affection he had for her. To bring her back to life. Rose didn’t think the word love, though it had to be so obvious how much she loved him. 

“I’m sorry,” Rose whispered. “I never wanted you to use a regeneration on me.”

“Oh, Rose.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “You’re worth it, my precious girl. You’re worth all my regenerations.”


End file.
